DR DAN HUGHES PRESENTS - The Nature of Transformational Therapeutic Change with Traumatised Children and Young People: What Needs to Happen?

Live stream conference (via Zoom)
12.00pm-5.00pm (GMT)

Please purchase your place via the online booking link and we will send you full instructions on how to join the live stream. For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@childmentalhealthcentre.org

"I think we all need a little Dan Hughes, that we can carry around in our pockets,
to give us advice and guidance." (Delegate, 31 Oct 2020 conference)

About the conference

“A thing which has not been understood inevitably reappears; like an unlaid ghost it cannot rest until the mystery has been solved and the spell is broken.“ (Freud 1909)

In the field of child mental health, Dan Hughes is internationally acclaimed for his remarkable way of being in conversation with troubled children that brings about therapeutic change often after just a few sessions. This is in contrast to many practitioners who work for years with troubled children, with little or no significant change.

For decades, the belief was that it was the therapeutic relationship per se (called non-specific factors) rather than the type of therapeutic intervention or modality that brought about long lasting change. Over the last decade however, this has been challenged by a mass of new scientific research studies called ‘the memory re-consolidation studies’. Memory re-consolidation is the innate neuroplasticity in the brain to disrupt the neural encoding of past traumatic emotional learnings that blight lives e.g. “I am worthless/unloveable”, “Dad hit me and locked me in the cupboard because I was bad”. We now know that with effective therapeutic interventions that address the original traumatic event, new emotional learnings can replace the old ones and bring about self-compassionate coherent narratives. At this point, all the symptoms needed as defensive protective strategy with the original emotional learning cease.

Dan will demonstrate how his key relational interventions, can indeed support transformational change and unlock previous neuronal encodings of hugely painful learnings and bring new emotional meaning to release children from the pain of their past. In light of the above, Dan will demonstrate how to gently and respectfully enable a troubled child/young person to see the connection between their painful past and their behaviour, emotions and relational patterns in the present. As a result, they are usually willing to address their past as they know that with you as practitioner they can do so without shame… and so let you help them make sense of their life.

What you'll learn from attending?

• Be profoundly moved by Dan’s wisdom and psychological insight, case material and way of being with children and young people that supports them to feel a real sense of psychological safety and wellbeing whilst addressing painful life experiences
• Learn how certain therapeutic interventions can enable children and young people to make the shift from blocked trust to trust and for parents to move from blocked care to care (Dan Hughes)
• Learn how Dan works with a carer and child in the room at the same time to increase psychological safety for the child
• Understand how a child/young person can profoundly change core beliefs about self and others
• Understand the relational events key for a child and teenager to move from being insecure to securely attached
• Take away key interventions which support conversations that matter between adult and child

Dr Dan Hughes

Dan Hughes is world-leading practitioner in healing troubled children. He has achieved international acclaim for his profoundly transformative therapeutic work with the most troubled and traumatised children and young people. Dan’s empathic way of relating to children and young people can bring about major changes often in a few sessions.  He is a Clinical Psychologist and author of many books including Building the Bonds of Attachment - Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children Principles of Attachment-Focused Parenting. He has decades of groundbreaking and profoundly moving clinical practice with very traumatised adolescents who have moved into violence. On this day he will inspire delegates, by demonstrating his breathtaking way of relating to children. He will speak about how he makes profound connection, not over months and years but from the very first meeting.

More information about Dr Dan Hughes: www.danielhughes.org

Books by Dr Dan Hughes (including special offer discount prices)